#0s&1s

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(via FIELD: Issue 93 — 0s&1s Reads | literary playground)

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(via BRITTLE STAR: Issue 47 — 0s&1s Reads | literary playground)

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There’s a new literary magazine on the digital shelves. The Neu Jorker is “an hommage d'triomphe” to a magazine with an eerily similar name.

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The worst things critics have ever said about my work pale in comparison to the worst things I've said to myself.

Last week, I directed you to Catie Disabato’s Thick Skin interview at 0s&1s. This week, Year in Reading alum Laura van den Berg joins them for the latest installment of the series, in which authors address their critics. 

We also recently interviewed van den Berg following the release of her first novel, Find Me.

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Year in Reading alum Catie Disabato sits down with 0s&1s to discuss “using criticism as fuel, ambition, comparisons to Ayn Rand, the power of pop stars, happiness norms & more.” You could also read our review of her latest work, The Ghost Network.

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How would you describe book snobbishness? Using your personal taste or literary standards to dictate to other people what they should spend their time or money on. It's not just about looking down on someone for reading romance or science fiction (though that's part of it, of course), but also about shaming readers for where they spend money or the format in which they read.

Amanda Nelson, managing editor of Book Riot, sits down with 0s&1s to talk about gender, books and blogging. 

To get your fill of literary blogging, check out our list of must-read literary Tumblrs.

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New Independent Publisher 0s&1s

  0s&1s is pinging on quite a few radars right now. The brainchild of McSweeney‘s writer Andrew Lipstein, 0s&1s sits apart from other publishers, including some of their small press contemporaries, with its output format and laudable business practices. They’re also selling curated titles from such small press darlings as Black Balloon, Curbside Splendor, and a dozen more.

For starters, all their releases are digital. And they’ve done away with the pesky DRM-restrictions that traditional publishers are still wringing their hands about. Most importantly, they have a transparent business plan that hinges on two important numbers: 6, the set dollar price for all their releases; and 80, the heretofore unthinkable royalty percentage that authors receive along with the full material rights.

With Amazon and the Big Five locking horns so often, author-friendly practices like these can go a long way in convincing readers to check out publishers who favor quality over market saturation.

The Books

0s&1s released its first two titles, both by debut authors, last month.

Victoria Hetherington’s debut novel, I Have To Tell You, is a frank and funny book about the interpersonal dynamics of a group of female friends in their early 20s. The book includes diary entries and long passages of dialogue. It offers a frank and cutting, though perhaps freakishly familiar, look at modern romance.

 The Making of Miasma by Henry Escaya follows a despondent ad-man who enters a government-sponsored medical testing program to expunge a criminal offense. As Os&1s describes it: “When he earns the worship of his fellow addicts, we find out what can happen when agency is taken from the abuser and given to the drug.” The writing in this thrilling novel is anything but simple; the reader is introduced to a full, surreal world.

Click through for an interview with Andrew Lipstein!

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Hetherington respects her characters with an unassuming commitment to unironic truthfulness, showing great proficiency for writing in different voices that speak through a variety of media, woven together with beauty and coherence. The inclusions of technology lack clumsiness or forced cleverness; it’s an organic outgrowth of her characters’ natural assertions or understandings of identity. If there ever is a “Great American Novel” (a probably stupid concept) this is how it should look—but of course it’s Canadian.

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